


I Need Him

by Fishyz9



Category: Days of Our Lives
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:38:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fishyz9/pseuds/Fishyz9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Based off of upcoming spoilers, Will turns himself in for Nick’s murder to keep Sonny safe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Need Him

**  
**

** I Need Him. **

“Let me in.” I grind out between my teeth. “Get out of goddamn way or I swear to―”

“Sonny!”

I snap my head to the side to see Hope standing in the doorway, so does the cop holding me back.

“What the hell are you trying to do, get yourself arrested?” She lifts her chin at the cop who’s in my face and he backs off, leaving the room.

“That’s my husband you’ve got in handcuffs back there.” I spit out at her.

“Sonny,” she says, softer this time. “I’m sorry, but he confessed. He kill―”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I know it’s not what you want to hear.”

“It’s  _garbage_!” I growl at her. “And if you were half the cop you pretend to be then you’d know that.”

Her gaze hardens and she takes a step closer. I couldn’t give less of a fuck if I tried.

“He had the motive, the means and he just came clean, it’s  _done_.”

“No,  _you’re_  done. That’s what you really mean, right?”

“What?”

“Nick was your family, for some godforsaken reason you loved the psycho. Not enough to actually help him in any way, but enough to turn your back on his victims―”

Now she’s the one in my face, her eyes stone cold. “I’m giving you a little leeway here, but don’t push it.”

“You just need to blame someone,  _anyone_. You blew your cousin off one too many times when needed you and now he’s gone.” I narrow my eyes at her. “It must be  _eating_  at you.”

“I suggest that you leave now unless you want to―”

“You tried Lucas but that didn’t work, did it? Your story fell through, but Will? No one had more of a reason to hate Nick than Will. Nick attacked every one of us in one way or another, but Nick made Will his personal plaything; he got off on torturing him. It’s just all too easy to point the finger at him―”

 “I didn’t have to point the finger. Like I said, he confessed.”

“You know Will, Hope. You  _know_  him.” I feel my breath catch and try to ignore the lump in my throat. “He has a good heart, he’s ridiculously loyal, he would never do this, he’s protecting his father!”

“Lucas wasn’t the prime suspect.”

That brings me up short. Hope had dragged Lucas in and going by what he’d said the case was all but closed. Just who the hell was Will protecting if…

“Who?” I whisper.

She hesitates and glances away for a moment before answering. “You. The gun came from the Kiriakis mansion, you had access and motive. You were the prime suspect.”

I don’t realize that my hands are shaking until I cover my face with them. “Oh god,” I whisper. “It’s my fault.”

“Nothing is your fault, Sonny. Nick was trying to take Arianna away from Will, he damn near succeeded. So yes, he would do this, Sonny. We both know he’d do anything for the people he loves, he’d even kill for them.”

“He didn’t do it,” I shake my head. “You didn’t see the look of horror on his face when he found out I took the gun, he wouldn’t do it…”

“I’m sorry. I take no pleasure in―”

“Oh for― _Seriously_? You’ve got no right to wear that badge, you know that, right?” I ignore the hot streak running down my cheek. “This isn’t just shoddy police work, it’s  _lazy_.”

“You need to leave.”

“No, you need to listen. It was my gun,  _I_  did it.”

She sighs and shakes her head at me. “Sonny…”

“Will had nothing―”

“He took your keys, Sonny. He took your keys and then he took the gun from your Uncle Vic’s study.”

“I took the gun, not Will!”

“Both of your prints were on it, I’m guessing you tried to take it from him, talk him out of it…”

She has no idea how backwards she has it.

“But his motive was stronger. With the prints and his confession…”

 “You just don’t even care, do you?” I hold my hands out to the sides and shake my head. “Case closed, everyone can go home!”

“Of course I care,” she hisses. “Both Nick and Will are my family, of  _course_ I care.”

“Then why did you turn a blind eye to what he did, to what he continued to do to Will?”

She swipes her hands over her face. “Being a cop does not make me psychic, Sonny. Not  _one_  of you came to me, not  _one_!”

I swallow hard. “Because we knew you wouldn’t help.”

“Of course I would have!” She pleads, and I can see now how much pain this ordeal is causing her. “But no one spoke up and now Nick is dead, there’s no getting away from that, Sonny. Will  _killed_  a man.”

I close my eyes tight and run my hands through my hair, balling my fists until it hurts. “I hate him. He’s dead and I still hate him so much.”

“Well maybe if one or two of the people in this town had given him a chance then we wouldn’t be―”

“Are you  _kidding_  me right now? Are you…” I feel like screaming, instead I take a step back and kick the nearest thing, a chair.

“Calm down!”

“He was given chance after chance after chance to be at the bear minimum a semi decent human being, and he rejected the offer every goddamn time!”

“I saw how he was treated!”

“You saw what he wanted you to see!”

“He tried to make amends!”

“No, he didn’t, Hope!” I pace away from her for a moment, trying to gather myself. “He spent a total of four year in prison for murder, Hope. _Four years_. After kidnapping a vulnerable young woman and murdering her father.”

 “The law says he paid his due.”

I let out a humorless laugh. “That must be difficult for you, surely? I mean, it’s your cousin, so of course you want him home, but you’re also a cop. We all know that if we were talking about anyone else who had been released after only four years for a kidnapping and murder you’d be seeing red.”

“How I feel about it has nothing to do with what Will did.”

“Four years, Hope.” I say, ignoring her.  “And he had the nerve to play the victim, never mind that prison isn’t supposed to be enjoyable.”

“You know what happened to him, Sonny. Come on…”

“That does not give him a free pass to inflict pain on others.”

“But it goes some way to explain why―”

“He wasn’t even sorry for what he did.”

“Hey, he  _apologized_ …”

“That doesn’t mean he was sorry.”

“I’m not doing this with you, Sonny. I’m not going around in circles with you…”

“You know what’s the saddest part of all this?”

She lets out a harsh sigh, wiping a hand over her forehead. She doesn’t answer me, but she does look at me, waiting for me to continue.

“He could have had forgiveness; all he had to do was earn it.” I shrug sadly. “You know how Will is. All Nick had to do was keep his distance for a while, be respectful of the fact that Will didn’t want him around his family, around the child he tried to steal from him again and again, and eventually they would have been family again. Because that’s who Will is, but it isn’t who Nick is.”

“What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I’m saying Nick only cared about  _his_  wants,  _his_  needs. He wasn’t willing to earn trust; he wasn’t patient enough to earn any sort of forgiveness so he tried to force it.”

“Sonny,” she grinds out. “People who have been starved for love will seek it out any way they can. And when they see people who make their lives work? Who thrive? They get angry at them for not being broken or damaged, like Nick was.”

“I’m not saying that our hearts didn’t sink when we found out what happened.” I tell her. “But it’s not an excuse for his actions.” I take a step closer to her. “He made our lives a living  _hell_ , Hope, even after Will took a bullet for him. He went out of his way to hurt people and he  _enjoyed_  it. He hurt people who had shown him nothing but support…”

She narrows her eyes slightly. “Are you talking about Abigail?”

“Actually, I was talking about you.”

“ _Excuse_  me?”

“How do you think he got Will to sign away his rights way back in the day? Hmm?”

She says nothing, and I’m pissed off that it never even occurred to her to question this.

“By threatening his family, which included you, specifically.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m not telling you a goddamn thing, so you can stop asking, but the guy you’re so heartbroken over tried to throw you under the bus, and every time you, or Maggie, or Julie coddled him, you were enabling him. He took your words and used them to justify his actions, and because of you he had the audacity to complain when we wouldn’t forgive him when his every apology was followed by a threat!”

“Goddammit, Sonny!  Can you begin to imagine what it is he went through?”

“It didn’t stop him from trying to do the same thing!”

I’m not going to lie; a sick part of me is enjoying her stunned silence because I have been holding this in for far too long.

“What…what are you…?”

“He tried to rape Gabi.”

She stares at me in shock before taking a step backwards, looks for a chair, and slowly sits down.

“He followed her into the woods, got her on the ground, climbed on top of her―”

“Stop it,” she whispers brokenly.

“He pawed at her clothes, put his hands one her…”

“Oh god, Nick…”

“The very thing that Jensen did to him, he tried to do to her.”

“I can’t believe that…that…”

 “She had to smash him in the head with a rock to try and stop him.”

She snaps her gaze up at me and slowly stands as the pieces begin to fall together. “The scar…that was Gabi?”

“She was  _defending_  herself.” I bite out, ready to go to wall for Ari’s mom.

“Of course, but…why wouldn’t she just come to us, to the cops. I don’t….” Realization hits. “She thought Nick was dead?”

“She left him there,” I lie.

“And then he showed up and she…no  _wonder_.”

“He made it clear that if we didn’t all fall in line―”

“Who exactly is ‘ _all’_?” She asks angrily.

“He made it clear that if we didn’t all back off, then Gabi would go to prison for what she did. He tried to rape her, and then the sick bastard tried to force her into a relationship with him.”

“How is that even be  _possible_?” She asks in exasperation.

“It was possible because Gabi is as forgiving as Will. She was so desperate to believe his lies, so afraid of what he would do if he hadn’t changed that she went along with it all. She’s not a bad person.” I can’t help but flash back to only an hour ago, sitting with my head in her lap, practically sobbing as she rocked me. “She was just afraid.”

She paces away, hand on hip, the other cradling her forehead.  “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”

“You were too far in his pocket; he would have had you lock us all up.”

“You do understand that this only gives Will further motive, right?”

My stomach drops. “What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“You just told me Nick tried to rape his best friend, the mother of his child!”

“Yeah, and guess who was the last to find out and the most repulsed and infuriated at the idea of Nick lying dead in that forest?  _Will_! That’s who! I’m telling you Hope, he did not―”

“Will?!” Sami interrupts her, bursting into the room in true Sami form.

***

I look up when the door bursts open and then instantly drop my gaze. Not her. Not now. I can’t deal with her hysterics, not when all I can think about is not seeing my little girl every day, or the look of pain and confusion on Sonny’s face when he hears that I’m not coming home.

“Will,” she says carefully, approaching me slowly. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Mom, leave.”

“You are making a  _huge_  mistake.”

“I said leave.”

“You didn’t do this.”

“Yes I did, now go home.”

She crouches down next to my chair. “Look at me, I said look at me, Will.”

I reluctantly do as she asks.

“You are doing nobody any favors here. Will, you did not do this.”

“Yes, I d―”

“ _Stop that_!” She hisses, more furious then I’ve ever seen her. “I know you. _Hey_ ,” she turns my chin to look at her when I try to look away and her ice blue eyes are right there, not letting go of me. “I know you, you did not do this. Nick Fallon was a monster, but I know that when you looked at him, you saw a wounded animal. You did not do this.”

I can’t answer, instead I feel tears prick my eyes and I clench my jaw furiously, unwilling to crack. “Please leave.” I whisper.

“Baby, you don’t have to do this, your dad has an alibi now. They fished Kate’s gun out of the river, still loaded, they’re not going to―”

“They think Sonny did it.”

That’s enough to stop her dead. “Oh god…”

“They searched the mansion and found the gun Sonny took. It had both our prints on it.”

She glances behind her at the closed door, and moves to sit on the edge of the desk, holding both of my cuffed hands in hers. “Baby, why were your prints on it?”

I swallow hard. “Sonny took it” I cut her a quick glance, “to try and protect Ari and me.” I finish quickly. “He knew Nick was going to win and that we were going to lose our daughter, so he took the gun, but he didn’t use it.”

“And how did your prints get on it?” She asks patiently.

“I found it in his bag, asked him what the hell he was doing with a gun…”

“And then?”

“I convinced him to take it back, and he was going to, he  _did_. He did the next morning, but between finding the gun and him putting it back…Nick…”

She closes her eyes slowly. “Oh, Sonny…”

“Hey,” I hiss at her, pulling my hands out of her grip. “He didn’t do it. I know him, when I ask him to do something he doesn’t lie to me. He didn’t do it but the cops need to arrest someone, and they’ve chosen him.”

“So you’re just going to…”

“None of this is his fault.”

“Baby, if he’s innocent then they’ll realize that. You don’t have to do this!”

“Have you spoken to Hope lately? She wants someone to blame, she’s mad as hell and needs to arrest someone.”

“She’s not going to throw an innocent person in prison just to―”

“Sonny has no way of explaining the gun. What, you think they’re just going to believe that he thought about killing Nick and then just  _changed his mind_?”

“They believed your father.”

“Only because Sonny showed up on their radar.”

“Finger prints mean nothing, there’s a process to this, Will. They have to do tests and―”

“There was a bullet missing from the chamber.” I whisper.

I look at her, at her stunned expression and I feel something harden in me. “He didn’t do it.” I bite out. “I don’t know what happened, or who did it, or if they used the gun Sonny took, but it wasn’t Sonny. I know him; he wouldn’t do it. Not after I asked him not to.”

She sighs, rubbing her temples. “This is such a mess.”

“It’s done. Now  _please_ , just…go home.”

“You honestly think I’m going to sit here and watch you throw your life away?”

“It’s not your call.”

“If Sonny didn’t do it then that means you’re taking the fall for someone else!”

“It doesn’t  _matter_  who did it, not anymore! They want Sonny and that’s not…” I trail off when my voice breaks. “They can’t have him; they’ll have to settle for me.”

She tips my chin towards her and I close my eyes. I only open them again when she gives my chin a forceful little shake. “And what about Arianna Grace?”

I pull my chin away from her and avoid her gaze. “Don’t.”

“You’re not going to see her grow up, Will.”

“Stop it.”

“By the time you get out…honey, she’ll be grown. You’ll be a  _stranger_  to her.”

“I told you to  _leave_.”

“She won’t have a father.”

“Yes, she will. Sonny is her dad as much as I am. He won’t let….” I clear my throat when my voice cracks again. “He won’t let her forget me, I know he won’t.”

She’s quiet for a second, and then…“What if she doesn’t want to know you?”

Before I can stop myself my cuffed fists slam down on the desk and I push away from the table, she stands up but she doesn’t back away, and I know that she’s got the reaction out of me that she wanted.

“They want  _Sonny_ , get it?! They want someone to blame and they’ve chosen Sonny, my  _husband,_  my…” I clutch my chest desperately. “My _everything_!” I grind out. “ _Well they can’t have him_!” I yell at the top of my lungs.

She’s suddenly right in front of me, her hands cradling my face. Not to be tender, but to keep me from looking away, to keep me from backing out of this conversation. “He will suffer just as much as Arianna if you do this.”

I shake my head uselessly. “I need him,” I grind out, my eyes stinging. “I need him to be safe. He didn’t ask for any of this, mom. His only mistake was loving me, marrying  _me_.”

“Your love is  _not_  a mistake, and he would be so pissed at you right now it’s unreal.”

“I can’t bear the thought of him behind bars, mom. It  _kills_  me. What if someone attacked him, like they did to you over that dirty cop? Or…or what if…what if what happened to Nick happened to―”

“Don’t!” She hisses, closing her eyes, and I know that in her mind she’s imagining that nightmare happening to me. “Just…just don’t.”

“I will not let that happen to him, mom. Not to my Sonny. I won’t, I’ll die before he feels even a second of that hell.”

“You don’t think this is going to absolutely kill him? You don’t think the idea of you going through that is going to drive him out of his mind?”

“Well then I guess on this occasion I’m just gonna have to be the selfish one.”

“Oh god, Will…”

We both look at the door when it opens. It’s Hope with someone behind her, but her expression is unreadable.

“You are  _unbelievable_ ,” my mother hisses at her, practically baring her teeth.

“Mom, don’t…”

“You’ll protect that evil little bastard until you’re blue in the face, but when it comes to  _my_  son? The person in this equation who has suffered the most? You’re only too eager to help Nick out, aren’t you?”

I actually have to grab her arm and haul her back. “Mom!”

“Cool it, Sami.” Hope says, glancing between the two of us. “I want a moment with Will.”

“So you can force another false confession out of him? I don’t think so; my lawyer is already on his way…”

Hope steps closer to her, looking her in the eye and lowering her voice. “Everything we say will be off the record until his lawyer arrivers, but for now, I need to talk to him while I still can, understand?”

She glances between us, and it becomes obvious to us that Hope is trying to say something without actually saying it. It’s enough to get through to my mother and she quickly pulls me into her arms. I haven’t even the energy to hug her back or to answer her when she whispers in my ear to give Hope nothing. When she leaves there’s some shuffling outside the door, and then it’s just me and Hope.

She walks up to me, stops right in from of me and looks me in the eye, like if she looks hard enough she can pluck the truth right out of me. “Last chance, Will. The truth, give it to me right now before this goes any further.”

“I already told you, I did it.”

“I don’t think you understand how much trouble lying to me right now will get you into. It isn’t quite murder, but you can still go away for wasting our time when I could be looking for the real killer.”

“I killed him. He was going to take my baby away so I killed him, alright?”

“You’re confession isn’t sitting quite right with me, Will. I’ve seen you since Nick’s murder. We’ve spoken, you were kind and sympathetic…despite everything Nick did, you showed compassion…”

I swallow hard. “To throw you off.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Tell me this; if you were so desperate to keep Arianna in your life that you would kill someone, why would you choose to turn yourself in, voluntarily separating yourself from her?”

I can’t answer her, I don’t know how.

“See, the only reason I can think of is if you were protecting the one other person who means the world to you…Sonny.”

I grit my teeth. “Leave him alone.”

“Are you trying to distract me, Will? Are you covering for him?”

“He didn’t do it so just  _back off_!” I growl out at her.

She says nothing, but her gaze is unwavering. “I said I’d give him ten minutes, don’t waste it.”

I don’t understand what she’s saying until she leaves. The door’s not even closed the whole way before Sonny pushes through. The second his eyes land on me something in his expression cracks, a broken look that echoes through the room, through me.

“What have you done?” He whispers shakily again and again as he throws his arms around me. I wish to god my hands weren’t cuffed so that I could hold him. “Will, what have you done?”

“Shh, it’s alright. It’s going to be fine.”

“No it’s not!” He gasps out, his voice cracking. “Take it back; take it all back right now!”

“Baby…”

“I’m not kidding, Will. Unless you want me to hate you, take it back…”

Something inside of me splinters. “Don’t say that, I couldn’t bear for you to hate―” Before I can finish my sentence he desperately clutches me close, only now I can feel his body shake and the dampness of his tears against my cheek and neck.

“I can’t lose you, I can’t,” he whispers.  “I need you, okay?”  His hands touch my face, his brow touches mine.

“Please, please don’t leave me. Don’t go…” He whispers. “I need you, please, Will…”

It takes more than one try to get my words out, but I manage somehow. “Take care of Ari for me,” I tell him gently, and then squeeze my eyes shut when he lets out a quiet sob.

“Why are you doing this to me―to  _us_? This is someone else’s crime; let the cops figure it out―”

“Listen to me, baby, come here…” I pull back a fraction just so that I can raise my hands between us to touch his face. “We both know who they’re going after. It’s going to be me or you, but this all feeds back to me, alright? This whole mess with Nick followed me into our marriage, the victim here is  _you_.”

He just shakes his head. “Take it back, Will. It’s not too late…”

I wipe the dampness on his cheeks away with my thumb. “This is my first offence and it’s clear that Nick put me through hell, you just…you just need to hold on for a few years, okay? You look after our girl and I’ll be home as soon as I can, I promise.”

“I can confess, so can Lucas! If we all say we did it―”

“Then we’ll all end up in prison and Ari won’t have a father at all.”  I say firmly. “Sonny, I…I need you safe. I can’t let anyone hurt you, I just can’t.”

“So I’m supposed to watch you be carted off to prison? You’re hurting me, Will. Right now,  _this_  is hurting more than anything else ever could.”

“And I’m sorry for that, I am so sorry. But this isn’t the end of us or our family, understand?”

He clutches the front of my shirt, unable to say anything else. He only shakes his head, unwilling to look at me.

“They’re going to be back in here pretty soon…” I tilt my head to try and catch his gaze. “Look at me.” I tilt his chin up and swallow hard at the sight those brown eyes wet with tears. “We might not be alone again for a long time.”

“Will…”

“One kiss, Sonny. Please…”

“No,” he whispers, looking down at his hands that clutch the neck of my shift. “If I kiss you then you’ll give in. We’re not having a last kiss, Will. That’s not how it’s supposed to be for us.”

I ignore him and lift my cuffed hands so that I can tilt his chin up with my fingers. I kiss him anyway, just a simple press of the lips, and then I nuzzle close to him, eyes closed. My throat feels too thick to utter anything above a whisper. “Love you, husband.”

He chokes out a quiet sob, his hands mapping my shoulders, memorizing the shape of me. “Love you,” he whispers back.

There’s noise directly outside the door and he cringes, pulling me close, soaking me up while he can. “Will…”

“Shh, it’s alright. It’ll be alright.”

When an officer walks through heading straight for me, he stands there helpless. “It’ll be alright,” I repeat, ignoring the guy that walks behind me to lead me away. “I promise, everything will be―”

“You’re free to go.”

There’s a moment of stunned silence. Sonny’s wide eyes suddenly meet mine and it takes me a second or two to realize that my hands are suddenly free. Sonny’s immediately at my side, his hand in mine.

“I don’t understand,” I say. “I confessed. You put me under arrest…”

“Something that hasn’t escaped our attention, believe me. Luckily for you, you’re related to half of the Salem PD. Anyone else would be behind bars for wasting our time like this.”

“But why are you letting me go?”

“Will, leave it.” Sonny says firmly, sniffing loudly and leaving no room for argument. “Do we have papers to sign or can we just go?”

“I want to know what’s―” We look at Hope as she enters the room. “Hope! What’s going on?”

She ignores me and gestures to the other officer to leave. “Take him home.” She says to Sonny, looking through me. “Keep him there. In fact don’t ever let him do something so stupid again.”

“Absolutely,” he says, taking me by the arm and quickly wiping the back of his hand over his eyes. “We’re going home. Now.”

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that I am officially in the dog house. Sonny begins to pull me away but I grip his wrist, making him wait. “Hope, come on…”

She looks at both of us, lets out a sigh and rests both hands on her hips. “The killer just turned themselves in. Will…Arianna is with Marlena, your mother’s outside waiting―”

“Why is Ari with Marlena? Gabi should be …” It takes only a few seconds and the look on Hope’s face for me to put it together. “… _Gabi_?”

“Oh my god,” Sonny mutters next to me, wiping a hand over his face.

“But…but Gabi  _loved_  the guy.”

I look at Sonny when Hope doesn’t answer and instead looks at him. Sonny strokes his hand down the length of my arm. “I told her everything. _Everything_ , Will. She knows what he did.”

I look between them, frowning. “Okay, well that still doesn’t explain why she’d murder the guy, she forgave him.”

“She used the gun you took from your folks place, Sonny. That’s why there was a bullet missing, and that’s why it conveniently reappeared where you left it.”

“This…you’ve got it wrong, Hope. You have to be wrong.”

“Nick didn’t give her a way out, Will.” Hope says, looking a decade older. “My cousin…” she says, the word holding no affection in her voice, “…my cousin trapped her. Cornered her, pushed her to the limits…”

“The diaper bag,” Sonny says quietly. “She was at the town square clutching the diaper bag, but she didn’t have Ari. Ari wouldn’t be home for hours, there was no reason for her to have the diaper bag…”

“ _Wait_.” I snap. “Everyone just hold on a second, she started dating him again of her own accord.”

“Sonny, I really need you to take him home.”

Sonny gently takes me by the elbow but I pull free, not looking away from Hope. “I deserve an answer.”

Hope looks between us and then lets out another sigh, sinking down into the chair I’d been sitting in only minutes before, dreading what was to come.

“I do believe that she thought Nick had changed, much like we all did.” She glances between us. “Present company excluded.”

“Okay, so we’re on the same page…”

“But then Nick started slipping, started  _pushing_  her hand. Somewhere along the line she realized the truth…”

“And decided to  _kill_  the guy?”

“I can’t really talk about this anymore with you, I’m sorry.”

“Why are you so quick to believe her confession over mine, huh?”

“Will, calm down.” Sonny says to me quietly. “You don’t want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.”

 “I need to know, Hope. Goddammit, just  _tell_  me!”

“Because it isn’t the only confession she made!” Hope yells back, losing her temper for the moment.

“What?” Sonny says beside me. “What did…no. She didn’t, did she?”

“Can someone tell me what’s going on?” I snap.

But Hope doesn’t answer; she’s too busy glaring at Sonny. “I have a feeling your husband knows, I’m sure he’ll fill you in.”

“Let’s go,” Sonny whispers, pulling me away.

“Guys?”

We pause in the doorway, looking back at her.

“I just…I wanted to say how sorry I am…”

“I was out of line earlier,” Sonny says. “I was so worried about Will, I was wrong to―”

“I’m doing the apologizing here. I should have seen what he was doing, I…I should have seen.”

“And Gabi, what happens to her?”

“Will?” Sonny murmurs to me. “We’ve done a lot of thing we shouldn’t have―kept a lot of things quiet. It’s time to actually let the cops do their job, come on…”

Maybe it’s the look of fatigue and misery on Hope’s face, or maybe it’s the saddened tone of Sonny’s voice, but I know not to push it or argue any further.

“Ari’s going to need us.”

This is the very definition of being blindsided.  I don’t know what’s happened, but I know that I’m scared for Gabi and…and relieved for myself. “Sonny?”

He pulls me away, out of the room. “I’ll explain at home.”

“I’m sick of this whole thing.”

He stops walking and I come to a standstill beside him. “I think it’s all done now, baby. We just…” He cups my face and looks at me sadly. I know right then that whatever it is he’s going to explain when we get home is going to hurt like hell. “We just have to move on now, okay?”

“But what about Gabi?”

He clenches his jaw. “We’ll be there for her any way we can, but we can only do so much for her.”

“This has been going on a while, hasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“This is the thing that you kept from me so long ago, right? It’s the reason there was so much tension between you two back in the day.”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to be absolutely furious with you, aren’t I?”

“Yes.  But then you did just turn yourself in for a murder you didn’t commit. I’m not best pleased by that, Will, even if you were trying to save my ass.”

I let out a small groan, ignoring the prickling in my eyes as I lean on him. I take a few deep breathes, reach down for his hand and then stand straight.

“Alright,” I say.

“Alright?”

“Let’s go home and yell at each other.”

“There’s going to be a lot of comforting, too.”

“Then let’s get going because I…” my breath catches slightly. “I’m confused, worried, exhausted…I’m running on fumes.”

He pulls me close and gets me walking again. “I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”

 

 


End file.
